A plurality of different outputting means are known for outputting medical data. For example, a monitor may be placed in the vicinity of a hospital bed, an operating table or a treating stool in the field of view of an attending physician, a care provider or a ward nurse, on which a heart rate, blood pressure values and the like of a patient are visually displayed. Likewise, medical data may also be outputted, for example, audibly, e.g., in the form of a sequence of sounds representing the heartbeat. It is also known in such a case, in particular, that medical data can be outputted in the binary form only, by outputting, for example, a warning sound only when certain vital functional parameters are not within preset ranges.
The requirements imposed on the outputting of medical data differ depending on the conditions of use and the ambient conditions. For example, it may be advantageous in a remote monitoring mode to display only a small amount of significant medical data, so that these can be detected at a glance, for example, from a hospital corridor, by a ward nurse passing by. If, by contrast, a physician is treating the patient directly at the hospital bed, a plurality of medical data, for example, also an airway pressure, body temperature, respiration rate or the like shall also be displayed in a close monitoring mode, besides, for example, a heart rate and a blood pressure. Conversely, no warning sound or only a faint warning sound shall be outputted in such a close monitoring mode when a vital function being monitored is critical, whereas a louder alarm sound shall be outputted in the remote monitoring mode, in which no medical staff is usually located in the immediate vicinity of the outputting device.
It may be meaningful under loud hectic or very bright ambient conditions, which frequently prevail, for example, in an emergency admission unit, to output visual and/or audio alarm signals with increased contrast and/or in a brighter form or at a higher volume, while alarm signals shall be outputted at a correspondingly lower volume, with less contrast and/or darker in case of quiet ambient conditions, for example, in an operating room, an intensive care unit or a darkened wake-up room.
It has therefore already been known that different output modes can be used to adapt the output of the medical data to different ambient conditions. For example, in a first output mode, a monitoring screen may be displayed on a monitor, in which only a few numbers are displayed in a very large size, which are also visible from a greater distance. A detail screen with many pieces of information, displayed in a small size, may be displayed in a second output mode, which differs therefrom.
Medical devices frequently have a plurality of different functionalities, which are actuated via only a few input elements. The switchover between different output modes therefore often requires a plurality of operating steps, which are often distributed among different menus. This makes switchover time-consuming and cumbersome and may lead, in particular, to the circumstance that the mode will not be switched back into an initial mode by mistake.